Posted tagged ‘funny’

In Baby Driver, the newest film from writer/director Edgar Wright, a getaway driver played by talented newcomer Ansel Elgort, who goes by Baby, desperately tries to get out of his relationship with a crime boss (Kevin Spacey).

The film starts with a clever, well-directed introduction to our protagonist, featuring a typical morning for him getting coffee and whatnot, all expertly filmed with a nice tracking shot. One important takeaway from this scene – Baby is a genuinely cool guy.

We then get into a well-shot and well-choreographed action sequence which Wright impressively crafted using nothing but practical effects. It’s a fun scene for the audience. But Baby hopes it will be his second-to-last job ever.

We soon learn that Baby has a sad backstory involving his parents, one that also led to him developing a condition that requires him to constantly listen to music to drown out the noise in his head. Wright makes good use of this unique character trait by adding a good score that plays over pretty much every second of the film.

Another smart touch Wright adds to the movie is what appears to be an intention for the film to either take place in or at least have the feel of taking place in the 2000s decade. I can only assume he did this to add a level of timelessness to the film, or perhaps to contribute to society’s obsession with nostalgia.

Baby later meets a charming love interest named Deborah (Lily James), who doesn’t have much going on in her life other than a likely low-paying waitress job that she doesn’t seem to enjoy. The two of them have pleasant chemistry. And their romance actually adds to the plot and to Baby’s character development.

We get an entertaining, sometimes funny, and well-acted film overall. It doesn’t quite reach the highs I hoped. The story definitely felt a little basic and by the numbers at times. Although the ending went in a couple of unexpected directions, I’ll give it that.

And when all is said and done, it’s a very good movie overall, and one of the best I’ve seen so far this year. I give it an 8 out of 10.

Hey Seltzer and Friedberg, before you make your next parody film, sit down and give this one a watch. You might learn a few things.

So Kung Fury is a 2015 independent half-hour film about a cop of the same name. The purpose of this film is to parody 1980s cop movies. In fact, the film’s short runtime was probably one of the best choices the filmmakers made considering that I’m not even sure that they had enough good jokes to fill up 30 minutes, let alone an hour and a half.

Don’t get me wrong, this is definitely a funny movie, and one of the more refreshing spoof movies I’ve seen recently. But if I had one criticism to make of it, it’s that it didn’t quite reach the level of nonstop hilarity that it could have in my opinion.

But anyway, why exactly does this short film work as a parody? Well for one thing, it does a very good job at mimicking the style of these ’80s actions movies. It’s cheesy. It’s silly. And it looks like it was filmed with a potato. What more could you ask for? Actually, if you didn’t know going in, you might even think that this was an actual action film from the 1980s.

But in addition to mimicking the style of these movies, Kung Fury also does a fine job with exaggerating the tropes of ’80s action films to an absolutely absurd and at times hysterical degree. For instance, early in the film, they utilize the cliché of giving the cop a partner against his wishes. But for absolutely no reason at all, they give Kung Fury’s partner the head of a triceratops. And it’s just so dumb and random that you can’t help but laugh at it.

Kung Fury also succeeds at general comedy. Firstly, the premise itself is pretty funny. Kung Fury has to go back in time to kill Adolf Hitler as part of his mission. And I’m not entirely sure why. But I think that adds to the humor. There’s also a lot of very funny dialogue. Put all of that together, and it makes for a pretty enjoyable experience.

So overall, I give Kung Fury a 7.5 out of 10. I suggest checking this one out, either on YouTube, or here on Netflix.